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L. Mollenkopf scores 21, R. Sommers adds 14, Hook scores 10
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Reed Sommers Lane Hook
FULTON — Asked what he worked on during the offseason to get ready for his freshman season on the varsity, Caston freshman forward Logan Mollenkopf did not mention ballhandling or shooting or passing or rebounding or defense.
He said “toughness.”
Asked if he needed to develop more physical toughness or mental toughness, he said “a little bit of both.”
That toughness, from himself and his teammates, might have been on display as the Comets rallied from an eight-point deficit to beat visiting Delphi 63-50 Saturday.
Mollenkopf scored six of his game-high 21 points during a 10-0 third quarter run as Caston rallied from an eight-point deficit.
Reed Sommers added 14, and Lane Hook added 10 points and seven rebounds.
Drew McGrew added eight, including a crucial fourth quarter 3-pointer from the left corner that pushed the lead to seven.
Walker Jones led the Oracles with 11 points, and Xaine Tessier and Kaydn McAtee added 10 each.
Caston also outscored Delphi 14-3 from the foul line.
Caston won their third straight game to improve to 5-5. Delphi fell to 6-5.
Delphi would get within 55-50 on a McAtee free throw with 2:53 left, but Caston closed on an 8-0 run.
The run started with Logan Mollenkopf showing off nifty footwork in the post and going glass.
Jones missed two free throws for Delphi, and Sommers exploded to the rim for a driving layup.
Sommers, Mollenkopf and Hook combined to make four of six free throws over the final 48.8 seconds to complete the scoring.
Caston committed 10 turnovers in the first half but only three in the second half. That kept Delphi out of transition in the second half.
“We didn’t give up offensive rebounds in the second half,” Caston coach Carl Davis said. “I think we gave up only two or three in the second half. We gave up nine or 10 in the first half unofficially. So limiting their second chance opportunities, and then we take our turnovers from 10 to three in the second half. So you limit their transition opportunities, and you limit their second chance points, and it’s a lot easier to play defense that way. I thought our guys, they took the challenge at halftime. They knew what they had to do coming out. There were no surprises coming into the game tonight with what they brought. They’re going to be physical. They’re going to be hard-nosed, and they’re going to play really hard for 32 minutes, and I thought our guys did some growing up in the second half and responded really well.”
While Davis lauded his team’s rebounding and added that Hook got some “big ones” off the glass in the second half, Delphi first-year coach Chad Pulver bemoaned his team’s rebounding.
“We did a much better job crashing like we needed to do in the first half,” coach Pulver said. “We were able to find some openings through some of our cuts. In the second half, we didn’t have the same openings, and honestly, we gave them way more opportunities to get right to the rack on their offensive end, so then it put a lot more pressure on us to make the great shot when in reality we wanted to put them in a tougher spot offensively to be able to control the boards. So them closing us out and not getting more than one shot at a time certainly put more pressure on us.”
Caston starts Mollenkopf; his older brother Gavin, a junior; and three sophomores. The top reserve is sophomore Carson Harness. By contrast, Delphi starts four seniors.
Though modestly stated by Logan Mollenkopf, the team goal for the future is set high.
“We’ve played together pretty much our whole lives,” Mollenkopf said. “So it’s pretty good. … We all think we can go to state eventually. … We’re good together, and we’ll get there. We’re going to work on it, and we’ll be there eventually.”
Logan Mollenkopf outscored the entire Delphi team 9-7 in the third quarter. Trailing 36-32, he drove in for a layup and a foul and completed the 3-point play to cut the lead to one. A McGrew short jumper in the lane put Caston ahead for good at 37-36.
McGrew found Logan Mollenkopf for a 3-pointer and a four-point lead, and the 5-8 Sommers, who had been blitzed by taller, trapping Delphi defenders as he crossed halfcourt earlier, this time drove to the hoop for a layup and a six-point lead.
If opponents run two defenders at Sommers, Sommers must react quickly so he does not get trapped, and his teammates must run towards Sommers and get in his sightline.
“We have to be available,” Davis said. “We have to see the pressure coming and be patient and use our change of pace more. I thought Reed did a much better job in the second half of doing that.”
Keigan Watts drilled a 3 from the right corner for Delphi, but Gavin Mollenkopf muscled in a layup.
The lead was 45-39 going into the fourth quarter and was still 47-43 after a Braydn Gleason post turnaround, but Sommers drove into the left side of the lane and kicked out to McGrew in the corner, and he tossed in an open triple to get the lead to seven.
Delphi 6-8 big man Caulden Pulver scored in the post, but Gavin Mollenkopf split a pair of free throws, and Logan Mollenkopf scored in the post.
But McAtee answered with a short jumper in the lane, and Tessier hit a leaning banker and was fouled with 3:04 left. He missed the free throw, and Hook hit two from the line with 3:02 left.
Caston jumped out to a 15-7 lead in the first quarter, but Delphi had runs of 7-0 and 8-0 in the second quarter to build a 32-24 lead. They led 32-26 at halftime.
In the JV game, Caston won 46-45 behind Parker Zimpleman’s 14 points and Owen Chapman’s 12. Geoffrey Foster and Gage Thomas added nine each, and Kaemen Lee had two.
Caston 63, Delphi 50
DELPHI (50) (6-5)
Josh Hartley 1 0-0 2, Walker Jones 5 0-2 11, Xaine Tessier 4 2-4 10, Keigan Watts 1 0-0 3, Braydn Gleason 3 0-0 6, Kaydn McAtee 4 1-2 10, Logan Smith 0 0-0 0, Levi Coghill 1 0-0 2, Weston Brown 1 0-0 2, Caulden Pulver 2 0-0 4
TEAM: 22 3-8 50
CASTON (63) (5-5)
Drew McGrew 3 1-2 8, Reed Sommers 5 3-4 14, Gavin Mollenkopf 2 2-4 6, Logan Mollenkopf 8 2-3 21, Lane Hook 2 6-7 10, Jan Aguilar-Mendez 0 0-0 0, Carson Harness 2 0-0 4, Max Sommers 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 22 14-20 63
Three-point field goals:
Delphi 3 (Jones, McAtee, Watts),
Caston 5 (L. Mollenkopf 3, R. Sommers, McGrew)
Total fouls: Delphi 22, Caston 14
Turnovers: Delphi 16, Caston 13
Score by quarters
Delphi 10 22 7 11 – 50
Caston 15 11 19 18 – 63
JV: Caston 46, Delphi 45
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